The Size of the Truth

by Andrew Smith Narrated by Ramón de Ocampo

Overview

A boy who spent three days trapped in a well tries to overcome his PTSD and claustrophobia so he can fulfill his dream of becoming a famous chef in Andrew Smith's first middle grade novel.

When he was four years old, Sam Abernathy was trapped at the bottom of a well for three days, where he was teased by a smart-aleck armadillo named Bartleby. Since then, his parents plan every move he makes.

But Sam doesn't like their plans. He doesn't want to go to MIT. And he doesn't want to skip two grades, being stuck in the eighth grade as an eleven-year-old with James Jenkins, the boy he's sure pushed him into the well in the first place. He wants to be a chef. And he's going to start by entering the first annual Blue Creek Days Colonel Jenkins Macaroni and Cheese Cook-Off.

That is, if he can survive eighth grade, and figure out the size of the truth that has slipped Sam's memory for seven years.

Editorial Reviews

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile

Narrator Ramón de Ocampo makes this quirky, sometimes bizarre audiobook touching by giving 11-year-old Sam a likable but acerbic tone. Seven years ago, Sam fell into an abandoned well, but now “Well Boy” has other problems: He’s the youngest kid in eighth grade, his father doesn’t understand his passion for cooking, and 14-year-old James Jenkins wants to murder him. The story alternates between Sam’s eighth-grade year and his unreliable memories and hallucinations from the three days he spent inside the well, talking to the animals underground. Each animal has a distinct voice and accent—most hilariously, Bartleby, the obnoxious Texan armadillo. De Ocampo gives James Jenkins a Southern drawl, making this character’s reveal even more surprising. S.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

12/17/2018

Sam Abernathy’s parents have just skipped him from sixth to eighth grade, the first step, they say, in getting him into MIT. This puts him in the same grade as James Jenkins, the boy he blames for the three days he spent trapped in a well when he was four years old, an event that has defined his life in Blue Creek, Tex. Sam is not interested in MIT, and dislikes survival camping with his enthusiastic father; what he wants most is to leave his small town and become a chef, a goal he pursues secretly to avoid disappointing his parents. Smith (Winger) makes his middle grade debut in this aggressively quirky story that feels overstuffed with cleverly written plot details (mini golf, armadillos, bank robbers, gospel music, aliens) that compete with as often as complement each other. Passages detailing Sam’s time in the well offer uncertain connection to the rest of the story and raise more questions than they answer. The well-developed elements shine—as in Smith’s YA novels, repeating jokes become funnier over time—but the book fails to coalesce even as it succeeds in over-the-top entertainment. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

03/01/2019

Gr 5–8—In his imaginative, though at times flimsy, middle grade debut, Smith explores the backstory of Sam Abernathy, who first appeared in the 2015 YA novel Stand-Off. Seven years after falling into an abandoned well, 11-year-old Sam Abernathy can't shake his reputation around town as "Well Boy," especially now that he is in the same class as James Jenkins, who was partially to blame for the well incident. On top of that, Sam is stuck living the life his parents have planned for him, and Sam's desire to become a chef is nowhere in their blueprints. As Sam seizes an opportunity to make his cooking dreams come true, he begins to piece together recollections of the past that change the way he sees his own life and the people in it. Though Sam is a likeable character, readers may struggle to find the depiction of him as a four-year-old believable. Sam's inner thoughts as well as his dialogue with Bartleby, the sassy armadillo whose role throughout Sam's life remains unclear, are more typical of a young teenager than a small child. Still, Smith manages to deliver a unique story with moments that are both endearing and humorous. Readers may appreciate seeing two young male characters who defy the expectations for masculinity set by the people around them in favor of pursuing their true passions. VERDICT Though it fails to reach its full potential, this is a feel-good story with a quirky edge that will leave readers with a smile.—Lauren Hathaway, University of British Columbia

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile

Narrator Ramón de Ocampo makes this quirky, sometimes bizarre audiobook touching by giving 11-year-old Sam a likable but acerbic tone. Seven years ago, Sam fell into an abandoned well, but now “Well Boy” has other problems: He’s the youngest kid in eighth grade, his father doesn’t understand his passion for cooking, and 14-year-old James Jenkins wants to murder him. The story alternates between Sam’s eighth-grade year and his unreliable memories and hallucinations from the three days he spent inside the well, talking to the animals underground. Each animal has a distinct voice and accent—most hilariously, Bartleby, the obnoxious Texan armadillo. De Ocampo gives James Jenkins a Southern drawl, making this character’s reveal even more surprising. S.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-11-26

Sam Abernathy is uncomfortable.

He's uncomfortable in school, having skipped two grades to become the only 11-year-old in eighth grade. He's uncomfortable going on extreme survivalist camping trips with his dad. He's uncomfortable with the notion that his parents assume he'll be going to MIT when all he wants to do is become a chef. But none of this compares to the three days he spent stuck at the bottom of a well when he was 4. The novel toggles between Sam's subterranean adventure and his experience in eighth grade befriending the lumbering James Jenkins (the boy Sam blames for sending him down the well all those years ago). The two white boys embark on a curious relationship, and while the author is adept at filling in small details here and there with flourishes, the big picture does not coalesce. Are the flashbacks to preternaturally self-aware 4-year-old Sam's days in the well meant to represent reality? Or are they meant to be 11-year-old Sam's understanding of the events as he remembers them? Either way, how does the talking armadillo fit in? The shades of characterization given to Sam, his parents, and their small Texas town create a setting for an exploration of toxic masculinity that doesn't cohere. Sam's cooking is (anachronistically?) regarded by his father as stereotypically unmanly; James is forced to play football instead of dancing. Sam's coy repetitions of "(excuse me)" instead of curse words work against believable characterization.

Smith's first middle grader is a frustrating misfire. (Fiction. 10-14)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171150389
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Series:	Sam Abernathy , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

The Size of the Truth
This all starts with my first enormous truth, which was a hole.

When I was four years old, on Thanksgiving Day, I fell into a very deep, very small hole.

There were things in that hole. Things besides just me and dirt.

Some people can’t remember anything at all from when they were four years old. It seems like most people’s memories begin when they’re in kindergarten or first grade.

I can remember things that happened to me when I was only two.

For example, I remember the first time I met Karim—just after he and his family moved into the house down the road from ours. That happened when I was two. But for years I could not remember what happened to me when I fell into that hole.

Now I can.

People say I’m smart. It’s not my fault, though. I never tried to be smart. To be honest, which is something I always do try to be, I stopped being able to talk after I got out of the hole, so I started school late, when I was seven. It was like being in a race, where every other boy and girl had a two-year head start on me.

At least Karim always stuck with me, until we couldn’t stick anymore.

The hole I fell into was an old well.

In Blue Creek, Texas, which is where I live, everyone calls the hole an abandoned well, but that’s a strange way to describe a well. Nobody ever lived there and then moved out of it. It wasn’t a former pet, like a dog someone leaves out in the desert because they can’t take care of it anymore. So it’s hard for me to understand how a well can be “abandoned.”

What I fell into was a hole that nobody bothered to point out to me was still there and was also still a hole. A very deep one.

That day, Karim and I were running around in the woods behind his house with some older boys from the neighborhood, playing a game called Spud with a soccer ball that had gone flat.

If this older kid named James Jenkins, who nobody liked and everyone was afraid of, hadn’t thrown the ball so high before Karim could catch it and yell Spud!, I would not have taken that last step (which wasn’t a step, to be honest, since planet Earth was not beneath my foot), and I would not have been swallowed up by a hole.

But that’s what happened, and I fell.

I felt my left shoe come off.

Everything went dark.

Somewhere above me, Karim yelled, “Spud!”

And I kept falling.

As scary as falling into an abandoned well might sound when you aren’t in the middle of falling into one, I remember feeling far more confused than frightened as I slipped farther and farther down beneath the surface of Texas.

Falling seemed to take forever.

I hit things, and dirt got into my mouth and nose. My jeans twisted around, and my T-shirt got pulled up around my shoulders. Somehow, my feet ended up above me and my head pointed down.

As I fell, I worried about Mom and Dad, and how they were going to be mad at me.

I stopped tumbling.

Everything smelled and tasted like dirt.

And I was upside down, lying like a capital J, looking up at my feet and a fist-size patch of blue, which would have been the afternoon sky above the hole I fell through.

I spit mud out of my mouth.

I yelled. “Hey!”

I tried to move, to pull myself up.

“Karim! Hey!”

Then the walls around my shoulders seemed to widen out, and I fell again.

The second trip was shorter than the first, and this time I hit what must have been the flat bottom of the well. I lay on my side with my arms curled around my head. Little bits of dirt and pebbles sprinkled down on me from the walls above. It sounded like rain. I shut my eyes.

That was when I started being much more scared than confused.

It was also when I started to cry, which made mudslides all over my face. When you’re four, it really isn’t a big deal if you cry, right? I mean, unlike when you’re a boy in middle school, when it becomes a completely different issue with all kinds of costly consequences.

So I’m not embarrassed to say I cried. But let me make it clear: I was four, and I was at the bottom of a very deep hole.

I didn’t think I was hurt, but I wasn’t really sure, either.

I lay there for so long, just holding my head and trying to think about what had happened to me, and why this hole was here in the first place, but nothing made much sense.

I was completely alone.

It was Thanksgiving Day, and Mom and Dad were going to be so mad at me.

I may have gone to sleep.

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